The Comic That Got Out of Control
by LadyBow8
Summary: Working title. Hiei agrees to be home-schooled with Yukina by Genkai, then Kurama comes over to substitute teach one day and discovers he has an amazing ability to draw. His biggest fan becomes Kuwabara and they start a comic together that requires them to do... unexpected things... to stay inspired. Kurama get involved too. lmao (HieiBara, KuwaKura, Himuku, many going on here.)
1. Chapter 1

**The Comic That Got Out of Control**

 _A fic that's going places you never suspected, so stay tuned_

CHAPTER 1

It was spring in the Human World. Plants that had long since fallen into a sleep beneath the frost were stretching fresh green sprouts up to the sunlight and swaying now and again by a gentle wind that carried sweet scents.

This had cropped up quite a bit of Genkai's allergies, but Yukina was really starting to enjoy it. She was downstairs with the windows wide open, sipping tea and stringing a necklace at a table. Beside her work was a case of jewelry making supplies and an open book, with which she was terribly engrossed between reaching for the beads.

It was with pleasant surprise that she realized the crunch and squish outside her room was too much racket to be one of the various wildlife roaming about Genkai's compound. Unless you counted Hiei.

"Brother?" She asked over her shoulder. There was nobody there. Then, without making any further sound, a crown of dark, spiky hair emerged, followed by two wide, scarlet colored eyes staring intently. He kept his nose pressed against the outside of the sill. Yukina cocked her brow. "What...are you doing here?"

Hiei stayed where he was a moment before propelling himself through the window and rolling like a tumble-weed to the table, where he could poke around the food she had laying out. "Mukuro says I need to get out more."

"I thought you had patrol?"

 _Yes,_ but not as much as she thought. It used to be he would take every patrol shift he could get, back when he was having his "be extra about _everything_ " phase, but it got tiresome and repetitive, so Mukuro pulled some strings. Now, it was either bother his friends and family unannounced or watch the demon world equivalent of daytime TV on Mukuro's wide-screen. He knew the latter was rotting his mind, so here he was.

"Not today," he answered with his mouth full of onigiri. After a few more chews and one ambitious gulp, he grinned at her with an impish twinkle in his eye. "I thought I'd pay my dear sister a visit."

It's not that Yukina didn't love having him around. Sometimes she even wished he lived there. She missed him, more than she would ever dare to even _say_ to him! But she couldn't help but point out:

"You were here two days ago. And besides, you know I have-" Before she could complete that sentence, the door slammed open. When Genkai's eyes fell upon the twins, she snorted up all of her allergy-induced drainage and swiped her nose.

"You again?" She asked with one eyelid half open. Hiei threw up his hands. Yukina laid hers on his shoulder.

"She didn't mean it like that, it's just I'm about to have my tutoring. I won't be able to spend any time with you right now."

 _Tutoring?_ _What was_ _ **this**_ _nonsense? And why did it have to interfere?_ Yukina could already read these thoughts across his face, but she assured him she'd explain when she came back, if he could just find something to do for the next few hours.

He begrudgingly agreed and watched his sister leave the room. Before her cranky guardian closed the door on him, she made sure to emphasize that if anything _anywhere_ had his smoky little fingerprints on it, she would raise her own kind of hellfire.

A part of Yukina was not really expecting to see Hiei when she got back. He was extremely flighty in human world, even at this compound, which was the closest thing he had here to a place where he... "belonged", openly, as himself. Or if not belonged, then was tolerated.

When she opened the door, however, he was lying on his back, holding her book above his face and muttering what words he could read in a dejected sort of drawl. Beside him, on the table, was her empty snack plate and a pile of bracelets. With her jaw dropped, she came to examine the area and realized he had used every last one of her beads. And when she picked up the teapot it was light as a feather. She turned around to face her brother, who didn't even notice her incredulous features.

"Hiei?!"

"Hehehghahahahahghah," he cackled at the book, with his tummy popping in and out of his shirt. Yukina prodded through the bracelets and found that each had its own special theme of colors and shapes. One of them had cloudy stone spheres and cool aquamarine as bright and glimmering as a Caribbean tide pool. Another was a strange combination of boho jade spheres on matte black string, sprinkled with charms of pizza and french fries. She was already suspecting something, but when she saw the one with bright pink beads and floral print marbles, she could not keep it to herself any longer.

"Hiei, are these... are these friendship bracelets?"

"Yeah," he answered casually. He laid the book down at his chest and looked at her. "But they're all mine."

"You're going to... _wear_ them all?" He thought it over.

"No."

An awkward little laugh tumbled past her lips. "You know this set was a Christmas present, right?"

"Well fine, then _you_ can wear them!" She still was in a strange emotional limbo of wanting to hug her brother mercilessly but also unable to comprehend why he had spent all his time making jewelry. Hiei, meanwhile, had gotten bored with the subject twenty years ago. "So what is this... _tutoring_?" He asked, propping himself up with his elbows and making pointed eye contact. She didn't realize she was still clutching all of her books under her arm, so she finally set them down.

"Well, Kurama and I were talking," she started, which already perked up every microfibre in Hiei's body. He knew the two of them had a strangely close relationship ever since she chose to live in the human world and needed someone to turn to who knew all about surviving as a demon. "Well, you'll probably think this is funny, but he brought up that most humans who are physically at our stage of life go to school."

This word had put off Hiei for years. School, as far as he knew, ate up everybody's time, caused them unspeakable and unnecessary anxiety, and lead to suitors by the dozen who couldn't get the message. Well, okay, maybe that last one was just Kurama's problem.

Suddenly, he cringed at the thought of Yukina having to reject horny, human school boys.

"Heh. I'm not going to school, though. Here in human world, you have to pass an exam to get into a good school, and I just wouldn't be able to..." Her tone when explaining this was dashed with more than just a wisp of disappointment. "And well, Genkai was worried – Kurama as well – that my... differences... physically... might be too much of a distraction, maybe even a burden here."

"Pshhh. That's ridiculous!"

"I know. Not so different from where we started, is it? Though it _is_ funny that you have such an easier time fitting in here than I do." It was true. Most of the people on the street just thought Hiei was a sulking goth kid with red contacts. "Well anyway, since I'm not going to school, _yet,_ Genkai teaches me! In a way, we learn together, since she's cut herself off for so long. She teaches me history, we read classic books, we go to art museums... I've really enjoyed it so far!" Hiei was only kind of sputtering at this point, unsure from which angle he should try attacking this strange concept. "It's not so usual here in Japan, but in other parts of the world there are _lots_ of parents who do this with their children. It's called home-schooling."

"You mean to tell me this entire time Kurama could have stayed at home?!"

There was a stretching silence after Hiei's outburst, in which Yukina was not sure how to respond to this being his first formed thought on the issue.

In a way, Hiei felt like he had had second-hand homeschooling because frankly he tried to read everything the two of them had lying around: books, notepads, diaries... you name it. And he had stealth-participated in a variety of Kurama's field trips, including a museum. He still remembered it vividly: there were dinosaurs! Bones, that is.

"You think you'd want to join me... Brother?" Hiei snapped out of his pleasant reverie and glanced briefly at the pile of bracelets. If he had to do that again to pass the time, who knew what would happen to him.

"Hn. Why not?" He answered. After all of the detective's horror stories about her training, he would have liked to see how the hag ran a class, especially a class where his meek and mild ice maiden sister was the only pupil.

For a while now, Yukina had been watching a mysterious train of thought pass by in Hiei's unfocused gaze. Sometimes she understood him quite well without a single word exchanged. Other times, he seemed to be a different species. Either way, his acceptance of this offer had ignited a tiny flame of glee in her heart. She went to hug him from behind with her arms squeezed tightly around his neck.

"I'll just have to find a way of convincing her..." She trailed. With his back against her legs, weakly protesting the hug, Hiei hoped with her cheek smashed up against his that she still couldn't notice how much his face was burning now. "As you know, she is kind, but strict. She wouldn't stand for any time being wasted. You'd behave, wouldn't you?"

"Hmph, if for no other reason than to see the look on her face."

"Hehe!" She giggled into his ear before she let go. "I bet you could surprise her. You surprise _me_ all the time."

It was still so unusual for Hiei to let someone do that instead of kill them on the spot. He half-mindedly scratched where their cheeks had been squishing and smirked at her.

 _Challenge accepted._


	2. Chapter 2

**Author note: so does this site still have active people on it? Is there a YYH group writing and reading fics? Every time I post I don't get a single response, I'm just curious?**

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CHAPTER 2

Just to make a point of how much he had to do, Hiei never went home to Demon World that night. It wouldn't have made any difference to Mukuro: she laughed at curfews. But he just wanted to _make a point_ _._ And anyway,Yusuke was still in the process of setting up his ramen business and needed someone to try everything on his menu to make sure it wasn't total crap. Hiei just couldn't resist loading up on free noodles. Afterward, he guzzled cheap corner-store sake because he didn't know what the quality stuff was supposed to taste like, so it was just fine by him.

By midnight they were both drunk and playing hide and seek at an outside shopping center, which was not a fair game to play with Hiei because he could flash out of hiding places any time Yusuke came stumbling too near. Yusuke was starting to realize this, too, and didn't appreciate it.

"Do you have to cheat because your hiding places are so lame?" He wondered.

"My hiding places are f-flawless, thank you," Hiei answered, suddenly right beside him. Yusuke slowly came to realize he needed to shake his head to process this. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and blinked about ten times in a row.

"J-Jesus, Hiei."

Hiei's giggle was rich and sudden, like someone had stomped on a ketchup bottle. Giggling between the two of them was extremely contagious, so Yusuke started doing it too.

Then Hiei was sure that he had heard his sister's voice traveling through his telepathic tunnels. As in trying for his attention. This was all still a new thing they had been trying with his Jagan – her talking at it rather than him eavesdropping – and he would have needed to stand still and focus even if he _wasn't_ dancing atop alcoholic lily-pads. "Wow, man, you look so serious," Yusuke told him. It was true he had some kind of Resting Murder Face.

"It's Yukina," he explained, without blinking. This was reassuring to Yusuke: there was no way he wanted to murder his own sister.

Hiei turned to his partner in drink and grumbled a question: more to himself than to Yusuke, even though he was looking him straight in the eye: "why did I say yes about this shit?"

Yusuke didn't know how to answer.

"Oh, no, I wasn't— Look, I'll be there. Yup. _Ughh.._ " His nostrils flared one more time before he told her goodnight.

Spring. Yes, another morning of spring, which tickled Yukina's fancy but just seemed outright offensive to Hiei as he was waiting at Genkai's doorstep in the same crumpled clothes he had gobbled ramen in the previous night. There was even a broth stain right over his stomach. The stark calls of birds marking their territory and begging for sex clattered at Hiei's ears as he stared deadpan into the window in the door and crammed his finger into the bell switch. He could hear it blaring on and on like the horn of in incoming train before Genkai just _manifested_ in front of the empty reception way. He cursed himself for flinching as she swung open the door.

" _Sheesh!_ Couldn't you have had better manners and jumped through a window or something?"

"Leave a window open, and I'd be happy to."

She squinted before she let him in. "Did you eat yet? There's food in the kitchen." She hadn't said she was teaching him yet, so he didn't make any indication that he was heading there. "AH AH AH. Get those filthy boots off."

He stopped to look over his shoulder. "I thought we were leaving soon."

"If it's too much trouble to put them back on again, you can go to the store in your socks, but the _shoes_ come off _**here**_ **!** " She pointed an indignant finger at the floor long enough to convince Hiei to pick his battles.

Two clunks later, he was shoving breakfast biscuits in his mouth when Yukina sneaked up on him. "So you like themmmm!" She squeaked, eyes all a-glitter, and hair done differently. She had... street clothes... Jeans, a sweater, sneakers... It always took him by surprise to see her in them. Nevertheless, a faint smile that she would have to take as her "good morning" spread across his lips. "I made them. Take as many as you like."

He had already been doing that. He handed one to her instead, just as she was glancing inside a cute little metallic blue purse she had slung on her shoulder. She took it and returned a smile.

"They're delicious. Where's teacher?" Hiei wondered.

"Oh, she's out in the garden watering her plants. She does it every morning, same time," she answered. _Well that's just fascinating_ , he thought.

"Let me get this straight. You melted her with your puppy eyes and now she wants to buy me stuff?"

As she chewed down her biscuit, Yukina nodded with increasing trust in the situation, but he just stared at her with his lips parted. The incredulous words on his tongue had to stay there because their chaperone was back again, and if _she_ was ready to go than everybody else had to be too.

"What would possess you to think I would get into that?!" Hiei screeched, loudly and angrily enough to startle all of the birds settled atop the trees obscuring Genkai's old, rusty pedo-van. Yukina had climbed obediently into the back and buckled herself into a heart-patterened booster seat, and now it was Hiei's turn to climb into the Spiderman one. "I WILL NOT."

All Genkai did was glare at Yukina to get her brother in line.

"Please, Hiei. We could get pulled over without it."

"Why?! She's smaller than us!"

"I have my own, thank you," Genkai piped up, crossing her arms, not even bothering to look at him.

Hiei just stared into the air for a while. He was too hung over to entirely wrap his brain around this. "Okay fine, but I'm not using the buckle."

Neither of the ladies seemed to protest, so they all hopped in.

Twenty minutes later, the van had careened, and swerved, and cut off a number of other cars before they arrived at the nearest market. Then it took Genkai about three times to get it straight into a handicap parking spot. Even Yukina kind of wanted to kiss the ground once she was let out.

A security personnel had been watching the whole struggle and was even more taken aback when two red-eyed "children" came hopping out the door, though Hiei just glared at him. Then he turned to his sister, who turned to empty air. Then a whole lot of clatter started coming from the back of the van.

Genkai had about four plastic bags the size of haystacks full of tin cans. Cold brew coffee, it would seem. "You drink this shit?" Slipped out of Hiei's mouth, to Yukina's amusement. The irony was not lost on her: she had seen him eat crickets off the ground before. Genkai, meanwhile, didn't acknowledge his impudence.

"Yukina, be a dear and help him pick out his school supplies. Do you have the lists I wrote?"

"Of course, of course!"

"The supplies, aaaand...?"

"The groceries. Yes~!" Yukina did a whole lot of awkward chuckling to herself as she pulled two papers from her purse.

"I'll be at the machines, wracking up some mula—"

"Excuse me?" Hiei interrupted, but no one seemed to hear.

" _Then_ I'm buying scratch-its and sitting at the cafe. You'll have that done in an hour?"

"Yes, of course."

"Wait a minute!" Hiei snapped, yet unaware just how strong Genkai's selective hearing was.

"Good girl." With his teeth clenched, he watched her haul two of the bags off over each shoulder, though she was so much smaller than them that by a certain distance it looked like they were dragging themselves.

Hiei crossed the automatic doors and went stomping into the market as if he knew where he was going. Yukina, meanwhile, followed behind, attempting to bring up the content of her lists. "That woman acts like the entire _universe_ was created to do her bidding!" In her softest voice, his sister tried to quell his flames.

"That's just how old people are, Hiei..."

"If I ever become old, shoot me. Poison me. Whatever's convenient," he told her, snatching an apple off a display and taking a huge, crunchy bite out of it." Yukina almost jumped on his arm to conceal the evidence from passersby.

" _Hiei, you have to pay for that first!"_

He chewed several times while making solid eye contact with her before he swallowed. The tremor in his brow gave away that in very short time he would find something else to bitch about, so Yukina flapped the lists in his face. "Put the apple in a bag and let's get started on this!" Hiei was not yet swayed.

"This is how you pay for her lessons? By becoming her _peon?!"_ Yukina found herself in a rare moment where she rolled her eyes.

"Stop being dramatic!" She told him, in a tender way he had never heard it before, and maybe for the first time in his life he worried maybe he _was_ being dramatic. "She's not forcing you to do this, Brother. You're helping me. ...Won't you?"

All the air that had been building up in his lungs flushed out in a groan he tried to keep quiet. He snatched up the list and squinted at it.

"What the hell!" It was an absolute mystery to Yukina how he had not died yet from the exhaustion of perpetual outrage. "Why would she need 20 cans of string beans?! And 25 bags of rice?! And what _is..._ Mucinex?!"

She had to explain to him that Genkai avoided the store, and she wanted the twins to fetch her enough that she wouldn't have to come back until the summer. "I think it's smart and thrifty," she told him. "We fill the _whole_ pantry. And she plays a mean coupon game!" For a second, it looked like Yukina believed she could impress Hiei with this fact, but he didn't know what coupons were. "How about we split up? You get all the boxes and cans, and I'll get the home goods and the weird stuff. How's that?"

Hiei frowned in compliance.

And so, off they went on their separate ways. Hiei had kept the list so close to his nose, he was more or less swerving blindly down the isles, unconcerned about any bodies that might end up in his path. He was not as terrible at locating items as he had thought. Before even a half hour had passed, he had whizzed through the store, stacking up all of Genkai's weird foods past the top of his cart. The thing became a menace to steer, but he was almost done. Only a few more things.

" _Where would I find flaxmeal? What the hell is flaxmeal?"_ He muttered, turning the corner, when his ear caught the tail end of a question posed by a regretfully familiar voice. He looked up from the list.

Fuck, it was Kuwabara!

With _Kurama?!_

Picking out... _cheese_ or something?!

"I mean, there's no reason we only have to pick one," Kuwabara rasped out, making anything sound stupid.

"No, certainly not," Kurama concurred. "Variety is very much key in so many aspects of life." They both nodded and seemed to believe he had just revealed a grand nugget of wisdom, so Kuwabara put the cheese he had been examining into their shared basket.

 _THAT WAS A WHOLE CAN OF 'NOPE' RIGHT THERE._ Before they could notice him, he huffed and puffed and heaved his cart into a U-turn to find respite down the cereal isle.

Once he came rolling up in a fury Yukina, she had been distracted by cute socks and slippers some time ago and was startled by his sudden, squeaky arrival. "Hey!" He called. "Let's get out of here!" His eyes were dodgy and he was squeezing the handle of the cart in a death grip. "I'm done. Are you done? Let's go."

"But w-we still need your school supplies!"

"Right. Let's get on with it." He shot his head left and right to make sure they weren't being watched before he wheeled the cart away again, already having the whole store memorized.

According to her list, he needed a notebook, a calculator, pencils, sticky notes... He just started throwing anything in the basket that vaguely resembled these things while Yukina tried to make sure they were what he wanted. He _insisted,_ but she just hid a smile from him for unshared reasons, which was more than irritating but would have to wait.

They found Genkai sipping a Starbucks near check out, who didn't even bat a lash that they were seeming to race for her with carts stacked higher than their heads. She knew the little person life too well.

She pulled out her trusty credit card and shepherded them into line at the registers. The coast seemed clear to Hiei, so he rammed the cart in and started piling all of her crap onto the conveyor belt. It was at this time that fate shoved his greatest frenemies back into his face, and before he knew it some sort of Hallmark-flavored reunion was happening at the checkstand. Kuwabara had guppy eyes for his sister and was discreetly checking her out; Kurama was pretending to have a civil conversation with Genkai while seeming to ask Hiei questions nonverbally with his eyes, like about what in the world he was doing there taking care of her groceries.

To make it worse, they were both dressed like Calven Klein models, like _ridonkulously_ well, to the point that Hiei could envision just how much time and money they might have spent on those particular outfits and it was infuriatingly frivolous. For a while, there, Hiei was just idling with his hands in his pockets, squinting at them, trying to find a single wrinkle in their shirts, or a bit of lent on Kurama's fancy wool pea-coat. _AHA._ Found one. _Ffff, not so perfect now... ah, Kurama?!_

"Yes, Kazuma's taking his finals this week and we have some _special plans_ to celebrate," he told them, perking up Hiei's ears. The phrase sounded like a scandal coming off that fox's tongue, which he was being purposefully vague about, probably.

"On that note, why dont you _explain_ yourselves. I haven't seen you since the Christmas party," Genkai told him.

"You... _wanted_ to see us?" Kuwabara wondered. It _was_ pretty hard to tell.

"Of course I did, you silly boys. How am I supposed to know how you're doing if you don't come and visit every now and then?!"

"Um, ma'am, the total will be 56,900 yen, please—" the cashier intervened.

"—Yeah, whatever." She practically threw the card at him.

"Let us help you with that," Kurama started, "if you can stand to wait a moment." He set the basket that he had been sharing with Kuwabara onto the belt and got his wallet ready.

"Kurama," Kuwabara protested under his breath, painfully close to his ear. Kurama was smiling about it, though.

"I've got it," he assured him.

"But it's not even—"

"I've _got_ it."

Hiei simply glared at this interaction while Genkai was having a football field length receipt printed.

Evidently, his sister did not know the exact reason for his moodiness, but it only got worse the closer the group came to Genkai's pedo-van. He had tried to steer them out the door before Kurama had finished paying for Kuwabara's stupid _cheeses._ He had taken off with the carts so they wouldn't be able to help. He had opted to run back to the compound instead of being seen climbing into the booster seat. He wouldn't explain it to her, though. She would just have to wonder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: Helloooooooooooooooooo... YYH fandom, are you out there?**

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CHAPTER 3

On a cool evening, Kurama and Kazuma arrived at the compound and cranked their necks up to view the top of Genkai's colossal stairs. Surrounding it were walls of lush green foliage, but between the trees they caught a brilliant sunset that painted golden stripes upon every step. They were enthralled on their journey to the doors. Kazuma smiled as a squirrel jetted for the brush and abandoned an acorn that toppled past his feet. Kurama appreciated soft singing of the wind chimes in the entrance way.

"Man, I forgot how nice it is, coming here," Kazuma trailed. "Too bad in like a couple of weeks this place is gonna get plowed by rain, huh?" He looked to Kurama, whose smile had momentarily lost its balance. "Sorry, that's probably not the best way to think of it..."

"You're not wrong, at least."

"Hey, do I look okay?"

Kurama looked to "the fourth wall". Kazuma always got like this if they were going to see Yukina. "Of course," he said. The irony is that they had already dated for months the previous year and it just hadn't worked out.

"She looked so cute last time I saw her. Like, beaming. You don't think-"

"She's not seeing anyone," Kurama told him, already knowing where this was going. "Even if she was, it wouldn't mean that she'd lost her feelings for you." Kazuma tried not to seem too tortured as he sighed, because he knew Kurama was right – about everything, all the time. "If you're meant to find your way back to each other, it will happen naturally."

"Yeah," he answered, sort of hugging the box of caramel corn he'd brought as a gift.

They rang the doorbell and waited. It always seemed to take Genkai a century to answer. When she finally did, they had been wondering if they should walk around to the back and were startled by the sudden crack of the door.

They set their coats and scarves on the wrack and stepped out of their shoes. As they followed her down the hall towards the dining room, a cluster of enticing aromas wafted past their noses. Then came Yukina, scurrying from the kitchen with a hot, steaming pot. Following her and also with a pot was... Hiei?! They barely seemed to notice they had guests, as she was too concerned about the table being set, and Hiei was relaying a very strange tale, with vigor.

"So the shepherd tells him the child he was to take and throw off the mountain-top came from none other than the Laius house – _obviously_ the son of Laius!" Hiei raved into her ear as she set up each pair of chopsticks with care. Meanwhile, he slapped down the teacups without looking. When Yukina caught their guests in her peripheral, she looked up and made sheepish eye-contact with Kazuma, then delivered her brightest smile.

"Ahhh! Welcome!"

"Hey. Pay attention to me," Hiei said.

"I'm listening!" She assured him before they bobbed past Kurama and Kazuma for the kitchen again.

"Don't mind that brat," came Genkai's voice from behind, startling them again. She had disappeared, but was now heading for her cushion at the head of the table. "He's not trying to be a nuisance this time, he... he just is," she muttered, bringing a fresh cup of tea to her lips. It was as good a cue as any to sit down, so they took two cushions next to her and just kind of darted their eyes around. Genkai had been fixing an unfocused gaze in front of her with her nose nestled at the rim of the cup, but she still managed to read their minds. "Yeah, he's been here all week."

They could still hear his dark cackles echoing amongst the clinks of china in the other room. Kurama found the nerve to ask _why_ he had been there all week.

"Because I'm too nice – that's why." The both of them stared, hoping she knew that this didn't exactly answer the question. "Yukina seemed to think it would be a good idea to show him what her homeschooling is like, and now I've created a monster."

Kazuma crinkled his nose. "You're homeschooling that brat? How does that even work?!"

"It just somehow does!" She exploded, propping up on her knees. "I thought he would hate it by day one, but he just kept coming back, and he got tired jumping worlds so now he just _stays_ here! And _listens_ to me with these intense burning eyes, and _hijacks_ our discussions... Now Yukina can't get a word in edgewise."

Kurama giggled, which did not elicit a positive response from either of his tablemates. " _Oh._ I mean, that's- that's-"

"What do you mean he _listens_ toyou?"

"He _listens_!" She repeated. "And I can't get him to stop asking questions!"

"He's not playing the 'why' game with you, is he?" Kurama wondered.

"No! They're useful questions! But enough of them to make _me_ completely useless after class. I have to nap for _hours_. Makes me not want to assign homework. Not that we were having much of it before this situation, but he _writes_ essays without being asked and drops them in my lap, and won't wait more than an hour for feedback. It's absurd."

By now, Kazuma seemed super curious what Hiei was writing about. With hesitance, he twitched his lips and asked half under his breath:

"Are they... are they any good?"

Genkai was frowning at the tabletop with her eyes wide. Before she answered, she swigged the last of her tea and slammed the cup on the table.

"They're brilliant."

The two of them gasped, then stared into space, trying to imagine all the novel things an angry, violent demon might have to say about Shakespeare... Aristotle... modern economics? ...Women's studies?

"I've asked her if she wants to kick him back out, and she just _insists_ that he stay. Seems the girl _likes_ being burdened."

While everyone was still in a daze, the twins came back, with Hiei balancing bowls up to his chin and still trying to talk.

" _ **By now,**_ when he knows he has made ritual of banging his mother for years – with two cursed children! – he stabs his own eyes out! HA! What a fool!"

"If you break those, you will _pay_ for the new ones!" Genkai growled at him. He set them all down with a cringe-worthy clash and stood over Yukina as she set the last porcelain dish in the center of the table. With his hands on his hips, he declared:

"Now... isn't _that_ a tantalizingly tale?!" At first, no one said anything. Yukina was practiced at keeping a smooth veneer in most situations, or perhaps she really did appreciate his enthusiasm. Either way, it was Kazuma who erupted into laughter. In fact, he was laughing so hard, he seemed startled by it and even blotted away tears.

Hiei went from tilting up his nose to caving into his own neck with a smoldering glare.

"Who invited _you_ here?"

" _I_ did," Genkai snapped. "And if you two even start at each other's throats, I can already tell you which one is going to get thrown out."

And so, dinner began.

Yukina sat next to Kurama, and Hiei sat next to her. The most he threw down the table was a timid "hello" to Kurama, which was not much less than he was expecting, but Yukina? She was surprisingly caught up in sibling banter and antic, exchanging things from under the table. The whole matter still made Kazuma uncomfortable, even _knowing_ they were siblings now. Actually, it was worse because now he couldn't even argue that she should ignore him.

And it was making him jealous! That he so effortlessly incited her giggles. A part of Kazuma was _sure_ he took that for granted.

Come dessert, they looked over from their pleasant conversation about the classes he would be taking at university in the coming semester. Hiei had centered a grape in front of his eye and rammed it with a spoon, so grape juice squirted all over the place.

Yukina covered her mouth when she saw that everyone was watching. Genkai was particularly unamused.

"HEY! If you have time for that, then surely you have time to clear the table." Unaware that this order was not for her, Yukina bowed in mild desperation and started collecting the empty bowls. "N-No, not- _ugh._ "

She was too obedient for her own good. Once Hiei realized he was about to be left alone with this lot, he snatched up an empty dish and flashed out of the room, making all of Genkai's potted plants shake.

It was getting increasingly impossible for Kurama to pretend that this wasn't the most adorable thing he had seen in _years_. He tried to pick up where his sputters before dinner had left off. "Well... on the bright side, I've never seen Hiei so... ah-hum, engaged?In literature? I guess, in the past, I was sharing all the wrong stories."

"Ffff. Oedipus Rex isn't even the worst of it." His host rolled her eyes. "He found out about Vlad the Impaler and won't stop talking about how he wants a castle surrounded by the bodies of his enemies. Pierced through sticks, like shishkebabs."

Kurama scrunched his brow to feign that he sympathized but in all truth a lot of Hiei's fantasies were along those lines, and he had heard about them for years now. Rivers of blood... entrance gates that were perpetually on fire... Sometimes he even used to murmur about it in his sleep.

" _Sheesh_. How did Yukina end up in the same womb as such a twisted shit?" Kazuma still looked like he was in pain from laughing earlier, but he _was_ serious.

"We may never know. Maybe what's pure and what's vile simply separates in these rare circumstances... like yin and yang... All I know is I'm _exhausted!"_

"Perhaps I can find a way to turn his studies in a more... productive direction," Kurama mused, suddenly.

Genkai gave him a funny look. "And by that, you mean?"

"Teach them, for you, the next time you need a break from it."

"You have time for that?"

"Yeah, Kurama – you have _time_ for that?" Kazuma parroted. Kurama kept a cool air about it.

"Of course. As long as it's over the weekend. My time hasn't much been my own lately, anyway. I have some new neighbors upstairs that haven't been subtle, so to say, and... Well, it's so lovely and peaceful here."

"HMPH – _was!"_ Genkai croaked. Kurama only responded with light, fluttery laughter.

Later in the evening, Genkai and the gingers had migrated to the sitting room and had been relaxing by her fire-pit. Yukina joined them, much to the discontentment of her brother, who hovered around the premises like a shadow waiting to reemerge with its caster. When this didn't seem like it would happen any time soon, his presence faded from the house, but was not untraceable.

As their guests were leaving, Kurama seemed to know the exact tree in which he was curling with a handheld game. In fact, he could spy his grouchy little face illuminated by the glowing screen from the right angle.

"Hiei?" Hiei blew a raspberry without looking at him.

"You two are still here?" Kazuma stopped beside Kurama and sort of giggled with his fingers in front of his lips, repeating the words. "Hehe, 'us two'?"

Hiei squinted. _What did_ _ **that**_ _mean?_

"Not anymore. You're free to go back inside, if that is what you wish." This fox already smelled of shenanigans, but Hiei couldn't put his finger on it. "Well, goodnight."

His lack of response didn't seem to affect Kurama as he carried on down the steps. Kazuma followed him a certain ways but couldn't resist shouting obnoxious farewells in Hiei's general direction. He promptly heard a shuffle and a snap before an acorn jetted through the darkness and struck him between the eyes.


End file.
